My stomach twists. Something tells me I’m not going to like this.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Iwas right. I don’t like this.
The marble bench beneath me is cold and hard, the rising noise pounding into my head. The arena stretches out below me, the emperor seated in his pulvinar—directly across from his gladians.
We’re seated low enough in the stands to command a certain amount of respect, but high enough that we’ll still need to squint unless the fighting is directly below us.
Thick, aether-coated tiles have drawn tight above our heads, forming a roof for the arena and protecting the vampires from the sun. Whatever we’re doing here, the emperor clearly doesn’t want to wait until after sunset.
“Excuse me. Sorry. Excuse me.” Maeva weaves her way down my row, planting herself next to me.
“Thanks for saving me a seat.” She smiles.
I didn’t. I’m unpopular enough that no one else wanted to sit there. Clearly, no one has communicated this to Maeva yet. Although I’m not exactly sure how she could have missed it.
She seems to be waiting for me to reply. When I don’t, she scans the arena. Neither of us mention the way she screamed out for me during my fight. Or the way I left at the beginning of hers.
Shame gnaws at me, and I stuff it down, stomping on it for good measure.
She clears her throat. “It’s … different sitting up here.”
The statement is obvious, but I know what she means. When you’re standing down below, the people watching you are mostly a blur of twisted expressions screaming for either you or your opponent. Only two people matter when you’re standing on sand: the person who wants to kill you, and the emperor himself.
This section of the stands is a seething mass of low-level sigilmarked. Someone behind us desperately needs a bath, while a man to our left is eating something heavily fried, the combination of scents enough to make my stomach roil.
The mundanes are seated in the stands far above us, so high it must be almost impossible for them to see what will happen in the arena.
Anticipation crackles through the air. There’s a joyful, almost celebratory edge to that anticipation, and pieces of conversation swirl around our heads.
“Pregnant already, she is. They wasted no time …”
“… a gold-crowned. Can you believe it?”
“I’ve got a good feeling about today. The wife says no more betting, but …”
“Problems at the southern border. Haven’t you heard? They’re making it almost impossible for imports to get through.”
“I heard she’s suffering from sun madness. It’s only a matter of time now …”
The last conversation catches my attention. I lean closer to Maeva, keeping my voice low. “What is sun madness?”
Her eyes widen. “You’ve never …”
I sink my teeth into my bottom lip. This is awkward. “I didn’t know many vampires personally in the Thorn.” And Tiernon had always seemed vaguely ashamed of his vampire nature, speaking of it rarely.
She flushes. “Uh, sorry. Um … sun madness has no cure. It’s most common among the older vampires—as if decades in darkness gnaws at their will to remain in the shadows. But it strikes randomly, too, especially during times of stress. A few years ago, I heard about a vampire who couldn’t bear the loss of the sun after he turned. He launched himself out of a window at sunrise with no warning, while his two younger sisters screamed for him.”
My stomach roils. A vampire so young wouldn’t have lasted a minute in the sun.
Maeva shrugs. “It’s kind of ironic, really, and it’s one of the reasons vampires show so much restraint with their emotions. Emotions like shock, rage, grief … they weaken vampires, making it more likely they’ll be struck with the madness.”
Someone lets out a cheer, and the crowd responds as the emperor walks into his pulvinar, a cup of wine in his hand. Umbros’s priestess sits to his left, her eyes glazed as usual, while a beautiful woman with long, white-blond hair lounges on his right.
Behind him, six novices line the back of the pulvinar, standing at attention.
How am I possibly going to be able to kill him?
